Bernardino. He has authored 100+ articles and book chapters; five textbooks; and books including Teaching and Assessing Writing; Developing Successful College Writing Programs; and Very Like a Whale: The Assessment of Writing Programs. He was awarded the 2011 CCCC Exemplar Award. William DeGenaro is Professor of Composition and Rhetoric and Director of the Writing Program at the University of Michigan Dearborn. His research interests include basic writing, service learning, and working-class studies. He is a past Fulbright Scholar to Beirut, Lebanon, and has served on the nominating and executive committees of CCCC.
Community college practitioners frequently bemoan negative or stereotypical representations of community college students and community college life in general in the popular media. Saturday Night Live skits and satirical news reports in The Onion enjoy poking fun at community colleges, while mainstream news outlets often fail to challenge stereotypes of community colleges as lacking academic rigor. Those frustrated by these portrayals should know that the press overwhelmingly lauded 2 year colleges during the early decades of the "junior college" movement. Such reporting celebrated the new institutions' missions, and praised their speedy growth as components of public education. In fact, the press often implied that these new campuses reflected an inevitable step in the evolution of American higher education. This paper analyzes media reports about public 2 year colleges (at the time called junior colleges) published during the 1920s and 1930s. The term junior college is used in this historical review since the term was common during the era in question.Each year the National Council of Teachers of English's Two-Year College Assocation (TYCA), presents fame and shame awards to recognize notable mentions of community colleges in the media. The fame award goes to an affirmative representation that highlights the 2 year mission, while the shame award goes to a negative or stereotypical representation. The organization expresses appreciation for the good press generated by news stories that tout the positive effects of community colleges and counter the myths and derogatory jokes that circulate about 2 year colleges. Those invested in community colleges and their popular portrayal may be curious to know that during the 1920s-30s, when 2 year colleges first began to flourish, magazines published numerous accounts of the new colleges. Those decades saw enrollment at junior colleges climb rapidly from 8,102
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